Dream Drop Third Straight Game in Loss to Storm

The Atlanta Dream couldn’t keep pace with a red-hot Seattle Storm, falling 105-90 on Saturday night at Climate Pledge Arena.

The Dream defense forced 18 turnovers and recorded seven steals but struggled to slow a Seattle offense that shot 60.3% from the field for the night. Playing its sixth game in 10 days, Atlanta dropped its third straight game on its current road trip — its longest skid of the 2026 season so far.

“Seattle was outstanding,” Atlanta Head Coach Karl Smesko said. “They were great from the opening tip. They just shot the ball incredibly well today, and I thought we hung around, hung around, but we just couldn’t make that run to really put some stress on them.”

How It Happened

Seattle came out of the gate on fire, opening the game with a 12-0 run and holding Atlanta scoreless for more than four minutes before Angel Reese converted a pair of free throws for the Dream’s first points. Atlanta’s defense settled in from there, forcing seven turnovers by the end of the opening quarter, but the offense couldn’t find any early rhythm.

The shooting splits in the first half tell the story: Atlanta connected on just 29% of its field goals and 21.1% from 3-point range, while Seattle caught fire at 50% from the floor and a blistering 58.3% from beyond the arc. The Dream’s lone bright spot was their work at the free-throw line, where they were 11-of-12 in the opening 20 minutes.

Reese jump-started the offense in the second quarter with a banked floater before adding a pair of free throws. Rhyne Howard followed with back-to-back 3-pointers as part of a 13-8 Dream run that trimmed the deficit to three. It marked a strong bounce-back for Howard, who scored 15 points on 6-for-8 shooting by the midway point of the second quarter alone after a quiet outing the night before.

Four straight free throws — two from Allisha Gray, two from Madina Okot — pulled Atlanta within a single point. But Seattle answered with a late 11-5 run to take a 7-point lead into the half.

The second half turned into a track meet. Atlanta actually outshot its first-half clip by a wide margin, hitting 18-of-29 from the field after the break, but Seattle was nearly unstoppable, shooting 72.4% over the final two quarters — including an absurd 85.7% in the third quarter alone. Atlanta’s defense had no answer for the Storm’s hot streak, even with 18 total turnovers forced on the night.

“When a team is shooting that well, you have to take advantage of the misses, and they were able to get O-boards for second chance points,” Gray said. “The way they were shooting, it hurt us a lot tonight.”

Key Performers

Rhyne Howard — 27 points (game-high for Atlanta)
Angel Reese — 17 points
Allisha Gray — 15 points
Jordin Canada — 10 assists, 8 points
Isobel Borlase — 7 points (led Dream reserves)

Gray Crosses 4,500 for Her Career

In the third quarter, Allisha Gray surpassed 4,500 career points on her ninth point of the night, a driving layup assisted by Canada. It’s the latest entry in what’s become a defining stretch for the 31-year-old guard, who enters this season with three All-Star selections and a 2020 Olympic gold medal in 3×3 basketball already on her résumé.

Gray, a former No. 4 overall pick by Dallas in 2017 and the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year that season, has been the engine of Atlanta’s rise since arriving via trade in January 2023. In May alone, she helped guide Atlanta to a 5-2 record while averaging 20.4 points and 4.1 rebounds per game, ranking second in the Eastern Conference in scoring and leading the conference in plus-minus at +7.6. Per the Dream, Saturday’s milestone game came on the heels of her fourth Eastern Conference Player of the Month honor in the past five eligible months — a run that has made her one of the most consistent two-way forces in the league.

The 4,500-point plateau places Gray in increasingly rare company among players to reach the mark, continuing a string of milestones — she crossed 3,500 career points in May 2025 and 4,000 in August 2025 — that have tracked almost exactly with Atlanta’s emergence as one of the WNBA’s most competitive franchises.

What’s Next

Despite the skid, the focus inside the locker room stayed forward-looking.

“Just getting back, looking at film, seeing what we can improve, and just continuing working to get better,” Gray said. “It’s still early in the season, so these are the types of things you want to experience early so you can learn from them so when it gets to playoff time, it’s not too late.”

Atlanta returns to action Thursday night when it travels to face the Washington Mystics.